“Los Angeles, it should be understood, is not a mere city. On the contrary, it is, and has been since 1888, a commodity; something to be advertised and sold to the people of the United States like automobiles, cigarettes and mouth wash.”
-Morrow Mayo
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Gossip is as old as civilization, but it’s recorded that the first tabloid journalism was founded by a British reverend in the 1770s, and spread to the States by the 1840s. In the 1960s, the National Enquirer perfected it, becoming a shorthand for the brazen, unhinged headlines that would dominate grocery store checkout lines. People, Us, and Star blazed the trails of a corrosive, magnetic journalism disregarding any semblance of privacy. We see it now in the form of doxxing, from 4chan and lolcow.farms to The Shade Room and constant sports trade rumors, making sure no morsel of uncertainty is parsed.
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